"Jewel. Why do they have those shields?"
Jewel pulled back the image, and showed the entirety of the room. We saw the five Shanks with the red flame shields. "Hmm, my best guess would be the Servitor. If I recall the Servitor flashed, and the shields appeared around the Shanks afterwards."
Abbi stood, and slammed her fists together, "Got it! Kill the Servitor, kill the Shanks!"
"Not that easy," Jewel disappeared, and I turned to Abbi leaning back on my hand, and rested my other arm on my knee now propped up at a ninety degree angle, "You two are weakened. You almost died, and Tiza is still recovering from her anxiety attack. We can't rush in half cocked, if we do." I shook my head slowly, and turned away.
Tiza came, and sat down on her knees beside me, and placed her hands on her thighs, "Sister," I turned to her trying to avoid her gaze, "We are family, we have each other's back, and we will defend each other." She placed her hand on my robotic head, and rubbed her hand back, and forth between my two red fins on the sides of my head.
"Tiza is right Maria, we fight together not even Oryx can kill us. You can ask him, if he were alive."
We chuckled at the joke, and I, and Tiza stood, "You're right sisters, let's kill them all. Teach them what happens when they try to attack the tower!" I wrapped my arms around Tiza's neck as we walked across the room to the elevator.
We jumped across the elevator shaft, and ducked behind the same crates as before. We looked over, and sat back. Tiza's super might be able to kill the big one, and the remaining explosions could kill the Shanks. I looked to her, "What do you say we take them all out in one blow?"
"What do you mean?"
Abbi looked at me, and scoffed, "You came up with a plan that quick?"
"Nova Bomb."
"Precisely Tiza, think it'll work?"
"One way to find out." She jumped up, and her body filled with void light, and moved it to her hand. She thrust her hand forward, and expended the light launching a large ball of void energy towards the Servitor. We watched as the Servitor slowly moved forwards toward the Nova Bomb. Confusion, concern, and dread filled my body. I felt fear coursing through my blood as it impacted, and nothing happened. A large vortex appeared in front of the Servitor, and seemed to suck the Nova Bomb into it. The Servitor flashed, and the light was expelled towards the Shanks, and their shields grew larger.
We sat against the boxes, "So that plan didn't work. Any other ideas Maria?"
Tiza's eyes were opened wide, and her legs splayed out to the side as she sat, "It just absorbed it. It absorbed my super, and used it against us!"
Abbi looked over, and pulled out her shotgun, "Distract the Shanks. I am going for the Servitor." Quickly she jumped over the crates, and fired a buckshot into the Servitors large center. The Shanks turned towards her, and I nodded to Tiza as we rolled out from the sides, and fired off shots from our Hand Cannons. The Shanks turned to us as their shields kept destroying the bullets melting them in the air. We watched their beams start to charge as our cylinders emptied. We ducked behind the crates as the beams fired almost destroying the large crates attached to the floor by a large mesh. I peeked through the crack between the two boxes, and saw Abbi firing shots into the Servitor. My eyes widened, and I gasped as one of Shanks turned to her.
"One never fired it's laser! Abbi break off!" I shouted standing up. The Servitor flashed, and a purple ring appeared around Abbi. She was picked up off the ground, and shook side to side as the Servitor looked left, and right rapidly until her shotgun flew across the room. After that she was just held in place. It was odd until the Shank that never fired it's beam started charging up the attack, "Abbi shield!" As the beam was fired Abbi tried to pull up the shield made of light, to no avail. She took the full brunt of the beam directly to her left side, and was held in place for a minute before near the end of the attack the Servitor must have let go because suddenly Abbi was embedded in the wall to our left. We looked over at her, and saw her armour cracked, and broken small pieces crumbling off. She was unmoving, and I presumed she was dead or unconscious. I readied my Ace to kill the people responsible for hurting her like that. Then she moved. She pulled herself out of the wall, and fell to the ground with a loud THWACK. She struggled to get up, resting her hand on her knee cap as she got to one knee. Red electricity arcing off her the entire time. Fear flooded me. I placed my arm in front of Tiza, and started walking backwards towards the corner of the room putting pressure against her chest, "We may want to step back."
"What is going on?"
"I don't know but I think we should get a safer distance." Tiza nodded as Abbi fully stood, and threw her head back screaming as an Arc explosion flew from her body red lightning flying off from her body knocking us into the corner. Wherever the lightning struck a red pool of lightning started to pulse in its location. We looked to Abbi, and watched as she disappeared, and reappeared in the pool of lightning right in front of the Servitor. She pulled her right arm back, and energy exploded around her arm. Her fist flew forwards towards the Servitor, and it slammed into its center. The Servitor froze, and started shaking as a beam of red Arc energy flew through its body from Abbi's fist. She brought her fist back, and instead of doing another jab gave a left hook, and punched into the side of the Servitor. The same beam appeared, and this time the Servitor flew away creating large Servitor shaped holes in the walls, breaking through every wall until it eventually evaporated into a mist as it made it outside. Abbi stood in front of all the Shanks in this pool of red lightning, and sighed as the red arc energy dissipated from her body.
She turned to us, "Right we still have the Shanks, Maria do it."
I nodded, and put my hand into the air, and summoned my Golden Gun, quickly taking two shots at the Shank closest to me before it could attack us. It turned into ash, and faded away as I smiled, "Abbi catch!"
I threw my Golden Gun to her, and she caught it in her left hand over her head without even looking, and brought it down to her left quickly firing two shots killing the Shank to her left before throwing it to Tiza. She caught it, and jumped on top of one of the Shanks stabbing the barrel into the Shank, and firing one shot before pulling it up, and before it disappeared fired off another shot past Abbi's head, and into a Shank about to hit her with the beam at point-blank range directly in front of her.
The last one appeared in front of Tiza, and was ready to attack one of us. I pulled out my sword, and threw it forwards, "Abbi kill it!" I said as the beam fired at me before I could jump to the side to fully dodge it. I felt immense pain as the beam hit my practically unguarded right side. I heard creaking, and felt ripping as the beam flowed through me. I fell backwards landing on my back. As the beam stopped, and I heard the exclaim of victory from Abbi I weakly looked to my right, and saw that the whole side of my body was torn away. From the bottom of my face all the way down my body the entire side was ripped away.
My vision went black as I heard them rushing to me.
I gasped awake, and shot up like a rocket. I started to touch the right side of my body, and felt it intact. I was gasping leaning on a box as we looked around. Everything was gone, defeated, and dead, "We did it?"
"We won, Abbi's numbskull charge in guns blazing idea actually worked."
Abbi scoffed crossing her arms, "Hey! Give me some damn credit, I'm not all explosions, and shotguns!" We laughed at her, and walked to the elevator, "I'm serious I think I deserve an apology."
We started to sprint up the stairs light finally welcoming us as the day broke. We ran down a hallway, and Abbi slammed her shoulder into a door red Arc energy bursting off her as she slammed through. Once we broke out we realized we were in the hanger. "Okay finally made it back to the top, took a while."
"Apparently all night according to the sun rising again. When did we go down?"
"Around midday I believe," Abbi said as she sat down exhausted loading her weapons. We ran into a few Thrall, and War Beasts as we continued through the halls, and stairs but we bust through with ease. "Now what?"
"We continue to fight. Our home is still under attack. We get to the Traveler, and protect it. Let's go."
Tiza's POV
We started to run to the exit of the hanger, and light shown in. It hit the three of us, and cast our shadows. Well almost. We watched as Maria cast no Shadow. "Hey Maria-" I place my hand in front of Abbi, and shook my head. She pulled off her helmet, and looked at me throwing it to the side her tousled red hair becoming free. Her right pale blue eye, and her left clear white eye looking to me. She moved her hair, and her scar cutting over her face, and through her eye became apparent, and she whispered to me, "She has no shadow! You want me to just ignore that!"
Calmly I spoke, "Of course not. But if we ask now it will only make things worse. We will throw her for a loop, and she will not be able to fight at her all when we need her."
She sucked on her teeth, and looked to Maria sighing deeply, "So what do we do then?"
"We fight with her, we wait, and when what we both fear comes to pass," I turned to Maria watching her ascend the small steps, and round the corner leaving the hanger, "We deal with it accordingly." The two of us slowly looked down, and turned to each other again, and shed a tear.
"Even if we lose our sister?" I nodded at her question as we jogged to catch up to her.
"Even then."
Maria's POV
We rounded another corner, and watched as we climbed up the steps, and saw a large group of Guardians fighting against a larger group of Shadow beings. Amidst the group of Shadow Beings was a large Knight with a Hive Boomer in its chest firing out shots. It held two of the Knights swords in each hand. It continuously fired off shots creating puddles of the shadows around the area, and we watched as Thrall spilled out of the puddles, and charged towards the Traveler. I called out, "Kill that Knight!"
As soon as the words left my mouth we watched a Warlock fly into the air. Clouds formed around her, and electricity arced off her body, and towards the ground. She pulled her hand back, and thrust it forward a massive beam of electricity flowing from her hitting the Knight directly in it chest. The Knight roared before turning into nothing fading away. The beam faded away quickly, and the Warlock floated over to us. "Vanguard."
I placed my hand up, "Jaora please you're my friend call me Maria, what's the status?"
Jaora removed her helmet, and her golden locks fell down around her face covering her left eye. Her bright blue eyes shining like the sea with her jade eye shadow. She was wearing her Iron Symmachy gear, Revelry gloves, and her Geomag Stabilizers. Her Go Figure, and Edge Transit on her back, and her Coldheart in her left hand hanging down to her side with her helmet in her right, "Right. These, Shadow Beings as you call them have been storming the tower from all sides. Below, above, you name it they are coming from there."
"Anything we can't handle?"
"Maybe. Come with me." We started to move to the center of the tower where large pillars were digging into the ground. Moving in we saw the destruction we weren't able to see down below. Guardians were slain around the door, hanging on railings, and leaning on boxes. Some cut into pieces. There were also large pillars digging into the tower through Eververse, and the Gunsmith shop. "They weren't out of their shops. Tess, and Banshee. Sadly they are gone ."
We all looked down as we came into the area, and looked to the right. There we saw a large pillar of darkness outside the area finally take form. We heard it cackle, and laugh. I turned to Abbi, and watched her start shaking, and her eyes widened, "No. No he can't be here, anyone but him please." She fell to her knees, and I dropped down to her, and grabbed her hands.
"Hey listen, look at me. Look into my eyes," She turned to me, and I smiled, speaking calmly, "Hey. There you go. Listen Oryx is dead, that is a cheap knock off." I stopped, and pointed to the large black inky form of a Shadow Oryx standing at the end of the tower leaning over us, "We didn't let him take you before, and we sure as hell aren't gonna let him take you now. Besides I doubt he has that power anymore."
"Y-yah."
"I have your back sister." I hugged her tightly, and we heard murmurs, and gasps from the other Guardians.
"See. You think everything you said, you don't feel it. Do you." My eyes widened, and I stood Abbi sitting behind me.
"That's why. That's why you have no shadow." Abbi spoke with fear as she stood behind me.
"When did this happen?" Tiza asked standing beside me.
We stood in a small pyramid. Me in front, Abbi right behind me slightly to the right, and Tiza to my left. "This is what happened when I fought is what that pain was."
"Oh you are wise. I see why they call you the True Gunslinger. You are perceptive, wise. Able to spot everything, feel everything. Sorry I should correct myself. I mean to say we, not you," A woman stepped towards me as the black mass surrounding her faded away revealing myself. "We know, feel, and see everything," I grit my teeth, and activated my Golden Gun holding it to my side. She chuckled, and a black flame engulfed her hand, and slowly she activated a Golden Gun with black flames along the barrel. "We are the True Gunslinger."